ATHLETIC PASTIMES IN A STREET IN CAIRO.— They were unquestionably a merry lot who made up the resident population of a Street in Cairo, so full of animal spirits as to often engage in their pastimes, even when there were no visitors in attendance. Naturally, among such people, with such lives as theirs had been, physical prowess was held in high esteem, and the hero of a combat with lance or scimiter was in their eyes a greater man than one who might rule a state or write a book. In the scene presented, a couple of the swarthy gentlemen who aided in making up the heterogeneous population are engaged in what seemed something like the staff play once popular in England, though ” spear play ” would be, perhaps, a better term, taking into consideration the length of the staffs employed. Very handy, too, with their novel weapons were the Nubian men, and it was apparent, when two of them faced each other, that either could make it most uncomfortable for any one unfamiliar with the sport. There was a dreadful clatter when they engaged, the combatants leaped about like panthers as they struck, lunged and parried, and the spectacle became one as exciting as an encounter not at all deadly could well be. The expression on the faces of the group in the picture, who have assembled to watch the combat, indicates that they count the event interesting as well as amusing. That the men belong to different localities, even if they be not of different race, is shown by their garb, one wearing the turban and the other the fez. It may be that the charms of some dusky lady had something to do with the rivalry.
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